It was a very ordinary wood, small, inconspicuous, and unimposing. No
big trees towered; there was no fence of thick, black trunks. It was
not mysterious, like the dense evergreens on the other side of the
grounds where the west wind shook half a mile of dripping branches in
stormy weather:
Where the yew trees are gigantic,
And the yellow coast of "Spain,"
Breasting on the dim "Atlantic,"
Stores the undesired rain.
It grew there in a kind of untidy muddle, on the very outskirts of the
estate, meekly--rather disappointingly, Uncle Felix thought. There was
no hint of anything haunted or terrible about it. Round rabbits fussed
busily about its edges, darting as though pulled by wires, and the
older wood-pigeons, no doubt, slept comfortably in its middle. But
game despised it heartily, and traps were never laid. There was not
even a trespassers' board, without which no wood is properly
attractive. Indeed, for most people it was simply not worth the
trouble of entering at all. Apparently no one ever bothered about it.
Yet, precisely for these very reasons, it was real. Tim described it
afterwards as a "naked" wood.
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